Fallen Angels
by trojan77
Summary: AU: In the first few years we all believed that we’d been misled about Harry Potter. We all expected him to do impossible feats of magic. We all underestimated him, but that was what he had intended us to do. Slytherin!Harry


Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.

Chapter One

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

- Opening sentence of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

*

"Now stew in the horned slugs. Yes, that's right. Perfect." There was a pause for a few minutes. "Now take the cauldron off the fire. Can you do that? Great. Now you can add the porcupine quills. And always remember that porcupine quills should be added once the cauldron is off the fire since otherwise it goes boom and the potion's ruined."

As the little boy with an untidy mop of raven black hair nodded his head and carefully focused in on the simple potion he was brewing, the woman with vivid red hair who had been supervising him smiled.

"Trying to make him into a potions master already, are we Lily?" came a voice from behind the two figures and two arms wrapped around the red-head's waist.

"Run away with me, Lily." The man whispered into the red-head's ear. "Just think: you, me and the Caribbean sun! No James to ruin our fun and no more teaching little Harry about potions!"

"Trying to run off with my wife again, Sirius?" Another man with the same messy black hair as the small boy walked into my room. "Does this mean I have to challenge you to a wizard's duel?" The man's hazel eyes were twinkling in amusement behind a pair of wiry glasses. He spun his wand between his fingers in a mock threatening way.

The red-head, Lily, chuckled slightly at the two's antics and wriggled out of Sirius' embrace. "Sorry Sirius, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass up the offer once again." She walked towards her husband and kissed him on the cheek.

Sirius let out a melodramatic sigh and collapsed onto a nearby armchair. "My plans!" he cried dramatically, "all foiled! My heart is broken once again!"

He looked to where the little boy was standing and beckoned to him. The small boy of four rushed over to his godfather and sat down on his lap.

"Your mother is a cruel woman, Harry," he told the boy seriously. "She toys with my affections, burning hot one minute, cold the next and constantly running back to your father."

Harry nodded along seriously with what his godfather was saying while his parents chuckled in the background at Sirius' antics.

"And starting to teach you how to brew potions!" Sirius continued his rant while his smoky-grey eyes gleamed with laughter.

"But I like making potions, Uncle Sirius!" Harry quickly reassured his godfather, his brilliantly green eyes guileless behind a pair of wide-rimmed glasses.

"Propaganda, too, it seems. Does your cruelty know no bounds, Lily?"

Lily shook her head at Sirius' remarks. Had Sirius said anything like this a decade ago, she would have gone into a rage, taking him seriously. But over the years her temper had cooled down somewhat and now she only found Sirius' rants and tirades amusing. She supposed it was a side-affect of living with a Marauder.

Lily signalled to her son to come over to where the simple potion to cure boils was resting on the side. "Don't believe a word you godfather says, Harry," she told her son. "He's only annoyed that I was the only girl in the whole of our year that never went out with him.

"Now," Lily said, tuning out Sirius' comeback ("But you belonged to James and he made us swear never to ask you out in third year!") and turning back to the cauldron, "do you remember how I told you to bottle up the potion?"

Harry nodded, his black hair flying everywhere. "I _know_ how to do it, Mummy," he told her in such a way that made her sound silly for ever doubting him.

"'Course you do, darling," Lily said and ruffled up her son's hair and making him glare at her.

"Should we move into the living room, then," James suggested to the other two adults.

"Shouldn't someone supervise Harry?" Sirius questioned his two friends carefully. He didn't actually have any children of his own but he thought that adult supervision was a requirement when the child was doing anything remotely dangerous.

"Didn't you hear him? He said he knows how to do it." James grinned at his best friend.

Lily rolled her eyes and explained to Sirius that Harry had bottled up potions hundreds of times and the potion he had brewed was one of the simplest in existence and didn't hold any dangers after the brewing stage. "If you had actually paid any attention in Potions lessons, you would know that," Lily had reprimanded.

As they settled down in the living room, Sirius decided to ask more about Harry's education since he hadn't seen his two friends in the last few months and Harry hadn't been brewing anything then.

"Well Lily's been starting to get him brewing some potions. We weren't originally going to let him, but Harry broke into the potion supply one night," James was grinning as he retold the story, "and managed to disable the alarms we placed on the room. We woke up in the morning and found a cauldron full of Draught of Living Death and Harry fast asleep on the floor."

"But isn't that a sixth-year potion? I can clearly remembering brewing that potion since good old Slughorn was offering Felix Felicis. First time I ever really bothered trying to get my potion perfect."

Sirius seemed to drift in memory for a while before he remembered how that lesson had ended. "Wait a minute; you were the one who won it," he said looking directly at Lily. "I remember dear old Snivellus being right annoyed and getting his knickers in a twist over it. Didn't he try and hex you in the corridor or something?"

"He didn't try, he did – but James shielded me from it."

"Ah, Jamesy acting the part of the knight in shinning armour, how romantic." James glared at his best-friend; it didn't help that back in sixth year his protective efforts had been dismissed with harsh glares.

"What did you use the Felix Felicis for, in the end?" James asked his wife.

"I'll tell you later when Sirius is gone," Lily promised." I don't want to ruin his innocence."

Sirius harrumphed and James snorted.

"But after that little incident," Lily said, reverting back to the original topic, "we decided that it would be better if we taught him; safer, at any rate. He enjoys it, so we can't really see a reason to stop him from learning."

"You're turning him into a Ravenclaw!" Sirius accused.

"No, I'm not. If anything, I bet he'll be a Slytherin, but it's really too early to tell."

"Lily!" Sirius cried outraged. "A Slytherin! This is terrible! What are you going to do about your wife, Prongs?"

"Nothing," James informed his best friend with a smug smile as he curled his arm around his wife. "I wouldn't change her for the world. Besides, we have a bet on. I bet Harry will go into Gryffindor and Lily's betting on Slytherin."

Sirius shook his head in mock outrage and marvelled at how James had matured over the last few years. Had anyone suggested that his son would be a Slytherin while they were at Hogwarts, James would have cursed the speaker until a month of Sundays. Now James merely took it with equanimity, with humour, even.

"What about Harry's huge bouts of uncontrollable magic that you were telling me about and I got to see first hand the last time I was here? I didn't notice any chaos magic in the air unlike last time, but then again that could just have been from the temper tantrum."

"I was hoping you'd notice that." Lily was looking smug now as she curled her legs beneath her. "I was going to ask Dumbledore about it, but I held off for a while since it's not especially safe for me to be seen and what with the apparent leak in the Order that Dumbledore still hasn't found, I thought it safer to try and do some research myself.

"I ended up finding the answer in the Potter grimoire. Apparently one of James' ancestors had a lot of uncontrollable magic when he was young and the parents didn't know what to do. Sadly for them, the toddler got scared enough at one point that he Apparated away and was never found. So the mother decided to research possible binding spells and created a ritual. She said at the end of the ritual that she hoped no one would have to go through the loss of a child as she did."

Sirius looked rather flabbergasted by this point. "So the story's true?"

Lily looked bewildered at this so James thought he better clear up the confusion. "It's a bit of a horror story Pureblood families tell their children whenever their magic flares up uncontrollably. It's supposed to make the child calm down."

"What's the story?"

"It's that a boy –"

"Little Johnny Redgrave!" Sirius interrupted to give the name of the boy.

"Yes, well, little Johnny Redgrave was a boy who couldn't control his magic and didn't listen to his parents who told him to calm down. To cut a long story short, Johnny's powers got so out of control that one day he Disapparated and found himself in a forest. After a while, depending on the ending, Johnny either gets mauled by an angry Hippogriff or wanders the forest for the rest of his life, never finding his way back home."

"What a lovely thing to tell your children," Lily commented drolly.

"Yeah, my mother loved telling me that story. Johnny always ended up meeting a terrible end. She liked to change the endings. By the time I was off to Hogwarts Johnny had been mauled by a Hippogriff, ravaged by a werewolf during the full moon, been eaten by an Acromantula, been accosted by some Inferi, had a nasty run in with a Hag, been char grilled by a dragon and I'm pretty sure he had his blood sucked dry by Dracula himself – even though everyone knows he's been dead for centuries. Oh, and she also had him ending up with a Muggle family, which was a fate worse than death in dear old Mum's book."

"She sounds like the perfect mother," Lily remarked sarcastically. Sirius never really talked about his family and childhood and Lily was beginning to see why. She had to wonder how Sirius had turned out the way he was.

"The Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor despite my protests and after that my mother wanted nothing to do with me." Sirius said, recognising the unasked question in Lily's eyes. "She felt I had tarnished the Black family name and become one of the things she despised the most – a Mudblood lover. I was never again treated to stories the like of little Johnny Redgrave." Sirius' usual smile was replaced by a distorted sneer.

"Well," said Lily after a slightly uncomfortable lull in conversation, "getting back to Harry, we decided to go through with the ritual. We did it last full moon since that was when the ritual is most effective. After that, Harry's magic has settled down and he no longer has constant uncontrollable outbursts of magic."

"Does he still have outbursts when emotional, like most children?" Sirius asked curiously. He'd never heard of anyone binding magic like Lily seemed to have done and wondered if there were any noticeable repercussions.

"That's the remarkable thing: he still has his magic but now it's no longer uncontrollable."

It took a few seconds for what Lily had said to sink into Sirius' brain. "He can do controlled magic? Without a wand? You mean," Sirius paused slightly here as though he couldn't believe what he was about to say, "Harry can do wandless magic?" His voice, barely above a whisper, was filled with disbelief.

Lily smiled widely and nodded.

"But… but that's impossible!" Sirius eventually exclaimed. "That's the stuff of legend!"

"We were shocked when Harry started to do things, too. At first we thought it was just uncontrollable magic like any normal kid but then we started to realise that it wasn't linked to emotion and he was just doing magic whenever he felt like it. Conclusive proof came when he had a rather large temper tantrum with water-works and everything and nothing was broken and no mini cyclone suddenly came into existence."

Sirius had to smile at James' reference to the cyclone. When Sirius had last visited the family Harry had thrown a tantrum at being told off by Lily for refusing to eat all his dinner. Sirius had watched with slight horror as a miniature cyclone began to form in the middle of the dinning room. It had been rather terrifying at the time as the three adults had tried, and eventually succeeded, in bringing it under control but now he looked back at it he couldn't help but find it funny. He had easily believed Lily's stories of wildly uncontrolled magic after that impromptu demonstration.

"James is now teaching him how to control it more effectively but we don't really have any reference point of how to deal with a child performing wandless magic. At the moment Harry's focusing on drawing Runes since that takes a lot of concentration to power them."

"Are you teaching him Charms and Transfiguration?"

Lily shook her head at this. "We don't need to. Harry merely concentrates rather hard and _voila_, it's done. But he can only really do small things since it usually leaves him exhausted and needing to eat a lot of food."

Sirius could hardly believe what he was hearing. Wandless magic was a thing of legend, a myth and yet here were his best friends telling him that Harry, his own godson, could do the impossible.

"Have you told Dumbledore? I'm sure he'd love to know."

"No, not yet," answered James. "We don't really want anyone to know about Harry's abilities. We especially don't want Voldemort finding out about it. We're already big enough targets and we don't want to give him even more of a reason to focus in on us. It's not that we don't trust Dumbledore, but with the leak in the Order, we're rather edgy about informing anyone. So please keep this to yourself, Padfoot."

"I won't tell anyone," Sirius promised solemnly.

"Thanks, Sirius," Lily said.

"Do you know when the bindings on his magic will fall away?"

"That's one of the good things about the ritual. Apparently, when Harry reaches his magical maturity on his seventeenth birthday the bindings are broken and he can then use all his power. We hope that by that time he'll be able to keep his emotions and magic more under control."

"That's a good thing. I can just imagine the Ministry trying to get hold of him to see why he has these abilities. If I were you I'd tell Dumbledore about the bindings before they're broken since he could probably stop the Ministry butting in and shipping Harry off to the Department of Mysteries for analysis."

"We're planning on telling Dumbledore eventually; hopefully when Harry goes to Hogwarts. At the moment you never know who Dumbledore might tell about it, believing they're totally trustworthy." James told his friend.

"Now you've reminded me why I've come."

"What? Didn't you come to see me and enjoy my charming company?" James pretended to look hurt. "You've wounded me deeply." A hand found its way to just above his heart.

Sirius' usually smiling face was no longer smiling, though. He lived up to his namesake for once and actually looked serious. "I wish that was why I'm here, but it's not."

Sirius took a deep breath and blurted out what he'd come here to tell them. "The Longbottoms are dead. Death Eaters managed to find their Secret-Keeper. Apparently it was one of Frank's relatives, but no one knows for sure since they never told the Order who they chose. Their Secret-Keeper, whoever he or she was, was captured and they tortured it out of them.

"After they found out their hiding place a group of Death Eaters and Voldemort himself attacked them. They even killed their little boy, Neville I think he's name was.

"The Order turned up too late to do anything since by then the Death Eaters were already gone. Merlin, it was horrible. There was blood everywhere and it was bad; it was really bad."

Lily was now crying and James wrapped his arm around her. Lily had been a friend of Alice's and had grown rather close when they had both fallen pregnant at the same time.

Lily's tearstained eyes met James' as she tried to restrain her sobs. They both knew that the death of the Longbottoms had greater consequences than Sirius or anyone except Dumbledore and they themselves knew.

Lily managed to smile shakily at James and nodded in agreement to his questioning eyes. "Tell him," she choked out. "I'll go check on Harry." She quickly fled the room.

"Are you going to tell me what you didn't want Lily to hear about the Longbottoms' deaths?" James asked his friend.

Sirius managed a half-grin at that. "I'd forgotten you could read me so well. But, no, I'm not going to tell you since you really don't want to know. Let's just leave it at being really bad."

He really didn't want his best friend to know the exact details of what they had found at the Longbottom house. He didn't want James to know that Alice had been gang-raped while Frank was held frozen and forced to watch without being able to do anything. He didn't want his friend to know that both Frank and Alice had been tortured by the Cruciatus curse to such an extent that it was probably better they were dead than merely existing in a vegetative state for the rest of their lives. He especially didn't want James to know that the little boy, who was only one day older than Harry, had been ripped apart with only his head remaining intact. No, he would take those images, especially the one of the little boy's head on a pike, to his grave.

"Now are you going to tell me what Lily asked you to tell me?" Sirius asked, trying to push away the gory images of the Longbottom house.

James sighed and pushed a hand through his messy hair. Though many people thought it was just something James did to try and make it look like he had just finished flying, Sirius knew it was actually a nervous gesture.

James sat there staring at his hands for a few minutes as he tried to figure out how to tell Sirius what he needed to say. In the end, James settled for just blurting it out. "There's a prophecy!"

"Prophecy?" Sirius questioned, trying to ensure that he had heard it right.

James managed a small grin at Sirius' response. "Yeah, a prophecy. I know it sounds stupid but there is an actual prophecy; a proper, totally authentic prophecy. Dumbledore said it was true."

"It wouldn't surprise me if those sour Muggle sweets have rotted Dumbledore's brain. He actually believes there's a prophecy?" Sirius sounded incredulous.

James didn't actually blame his best friend for being so full of disbelief. James suspected that if he was told that someone had predicted a real prophecy then he would have acted in the same way.

The scepticism about prophecies all stemmed from Divination class at Hogwarts. Sirius, him and Peter had all picked up the class in third year after hearing it was a bit of a doss. They had also believed it would be rather amusing to find out about what the future held in store for them. Both Sirius and he had walked into the first lesson with hopes of learning how to tell the future and being successful gamblers. Their idealistic – and somewhat ridiculous - plans had quickly gone up in smoke in just the first lesson.

Their teacher, Professor Swindler, had quickly disabused them of all their notions about actually trying to read the future. In their first lesson they had been told in quite blunt terms that it was a ridiculous belief that someone could actually look into the future and prophecies were merely lies that were later linked to an event that roughly followed the vague guidelines of the prophecy.

The next three years had been filled with lessons on how to pretend to predict something and make it sound believable while also being vague enough to actually fit a normal occasion. Remus, the only member of their group who had been smart enough not to take Divination, had smirked at them smugly whenever they came from a Divination lesson.

All three of them had, however, walked out with Outstandings in their OWL exam. It had been Peter who had the brilliant idea of setting up a prank to go off during the exam period that would affect the examiners and predicting that it would happen when asked to look in a crystal ball.

"Yes, Sirius," James told his friend as he yanked his mind back from the past. "Dumbledore believes it's real and so do I. I've seen the memory and I think it's the real deal and not some hoax." James hazel eyes begged Sirius to take a leap of faith and believe him.

"Alright," Sirius eventually agreed, "I'll believe that is a real prophecy. How does it affect you? 'Cause I can't see old Dumbledore just telling you about some prophecy out of the blue. Actually, I take that back; I can very easily see the old man doing exactly that."

"We'll it does affect me. Well, it doesn't specifically mention me and – oh Hell; it refers to Harry."

"Harry? But he's only a kid."

"Yeah, I know but when the prophecy was made he wasn't even born yet.

"Look, it will probably be better if I actually tell you the whole prophecy. Then you might understand better."

With a resigned and sad voice James recited the words that had condemned his family: "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who thrice defied him and born as the seventh month dies. The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not and either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

Sirius was looking at James in horror as he finished the prophecy. "Does it definitely refer to Harry? Isn't there someone else it could be?"

"It could have been Neville Longbottom. But that seems rather unlikely now, don't you think?" James voice broke as he finished speaking.

Unable to sit still any longer, James quickly rose to his feet and walked towards the single large window in the room. "Why does it have to be Harry? Why does it have to be _my_ family? Why couldn't it have been Neville Longbottom and not Harry? Why, Sirius? Why?"

James turned away from the window that looked out over the garden and Sirius saw that for the first time ever there were tears in his eyes.

"I don't know, Prongs. I don't know why any of this is happening. I don't know why there's a war going on or why people believe that it makes you a better person if you have old blood in you or why people are dying every day. I don't know why Harry's been picked to defeat Voldemort. I just don't know."

James sat back down and the two sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Do you think I'm a bad person, Padfoot?" James eventually asked. "Do you think it's awful of me to hide away like this and leave the war to others?"

"No, Prongs, I don't think you're a bad person. I think you're someone who's trying to protect his family as best he can. Besides, you and Lily are doing something for the war effort: Lily's making healing potions for Mungo's and you're creating devices for offence and defence that are saving people's lives on a daily basis."

James smiled slightly. "Thanks," he said. "I think I needed to hear that. It's just sometimes I sit here and think how selfish I am. I think of other people fighting the war and can't help but feel like I'm backing out of it like some sort of coward."

"Prongs, I can promise you now that you're no coward. You've never been, and never will be, a coward. If I was in your position I would be doing the exact same thing as you."

Suddenly something occurred to Sirius. "That's why you're in hiding, isn't it? That why Voldemort was targeting you. It wasn't because your family is a strong light supporter; it was because of Harry and the prophecy."

James gave his best friend a tight smile. "Yeah, that's why we've been hiding. Voldemort found out about the prophecy and wants to get rid of the problem before the one who's supposedly destined to defeat him gets strong enough to actually go through with it."

"So Voldemort knows what the prophecy says. Surely he would try and figure out what the whole 'mark him as an equal' thing is all about?"

"Voldemort doesn't know the whole thing. Apparently some follower of his heard the first few lines before being kicked out of the Hog's Head."

"The Hog's Head? That's that grubby pub in Hogsmead where we tried to pretend we were seventeen to get some Firewhiskey in fifth year, isn't it? The prophecy was made _there_?"

"Yeah, I thought the same. But Dumbledore was interviewing a candidate for the Divination job since Swindler decided she'd had enough of teaching students how to fake a prediction. Turns out the candidate was the real deal and went into a trance towards the end of the interview.

"But, anyway, Voldemort only knows the bit about being born to those who thrice defied him and born as the seventh month dies. It wasn't that difficult for him to realise that the only families that this applied to were us and the Longbottoms.

"Dumbledore said our best chance was to go under the Fidelius and we agreed since it was getting pretty difficult for me and Lily to keep running from one safe-house to the next, especially with Harry being born.

"We were going to tell you the prophecy when we asked you to become our Secret-Keeper but Dumbledore said the fewer people who knew the better and we didn't even know if the prophecy actually referred to Harry or not. But since we now know it is Harry, we thought it was best if you knew why you're risking your life to protect us."

"I understand completely," Sirius reassured his friend who was looking quite sheepish that he hadn't told him the prophecy years earlier.

The two drifted off into a comfortable silence.

"How's the war really going? Don't give me the load of crap you usually tell me, Padfoot; I want the truth."

"Ah, the truth," Sirius said in a rather jovial way which didn't reach his stormy grey eyes. "The truth is James that we're losing and losing badly. Voldemort's taking over everywhere and most people are wondering why he hasn't taken over the Ministry yet. The truth is that there is so much corruption in the Ministry and so many Death Eaters have infiltrated it that it actually makes more sense not to take over.

"Currently, the public is calling for a re-election and everyone wants Crouch in charge since they believe that old Bagnold just isn't getting the job done; I'm actually amazed she's lasted this long without a vote of no confidence.

"Hardly anyone talks to anyone anymore as they wonder what alliances the person they're talking to has and whether they're friend or foe. People who have known people for years are afraid to talk to each other anymore since no one knows what side the person they're talking to is on.

"I even saw Creusa Brand," at James' blank look, Sirius expanded: "you know, the blond in the year below us. She was a Ravenclaw and a right looker with the most amazing legs you've ever seen. I went out with her in seventh year for nearly a month. Remus teased me and said it must have been a record." James was now nodding along with Sirius and seemed to remember the girl so Sirius continued. "She was at St Mungo's when I went there with a rather bad gash after reporting to a raid. I tried talking to her but she completely blew me off and fled as fast as she could."

"Maybe she doesn't like you. After all, if my memory serves me correctly it _was_ you that dumped her. Wasn't it like the day before Valentine's day or something?" James was smirking at his best friend now.

Sirius was shaking his head though. "No, it wasn't because of that. You haven't been in the Wizarding world for three years now and haven't seen what it's become. The fear is palpable. People scurry along with their heads bend down, trying not to look anyone in the eye while still trying to figure out what everyone around them is doing. But mostly people stay indoors and try to shut the world out and try to delude themselves into thinking that this war isn't really happening."

"That bad, eh?" James voice was faint.

Sirius snorted derisively. "I don't even know who to trust anymore. The Auror corps is corrupted and half the time when we're called out to a raid somewhere I can't help wondering if one of them will hit me with a curse when my back is turned. Even the Order has been infiltrated with a spy and we're all edgy around one another. The only person who still acts the same as before we found out about the spy is Moody and that's only because he's paranoid about everyone.

"The Muggles are even starting to get curious about all the explosions and disappearances that are going on. The whole Statute of Secrecy is constantly being broken and the Ministry can't deal with trying to keep us hidden from the Muggles while also trying to fight a war."

"I'm starting to realise why ignorance is bliss," James stated quietly.

"I truthfully don't know how long we can last. Morale is at an all time low – has been for years, come to think of it - and most people are starting to think that maybe it would just be better if Voldemort did take over and end the war that way.

"Now can we please talk about something more pleasant? It's bad enough having to fight a war; I really don't want to have to talk about it too."

With that said the conversation turned reminiscent as the two men recounted some of their adventures at Hogwarts and remembered some of their greatest pranks.

When Lily walked in half-an-hour later with slightly blotchy eyes and Harry trailing after her, James and Sirius were recounting a game of pin the snake on the Snivellus.

Lily was shaking her head as she sat down next to her husband with Harry soon climbing onto her lap. "You two were wicked to Snape at school. I think you scarred him for life with all the things you did to him."

"But Liillly," Sirius whined, "he deserved it. He was a right slimy git who couldn't keep that enormously large nose to himself. He was also a hypocrite who desperately wished he was a Pureblood and didn't have a Muggle father. He was so steeped in the Dark Arts that he had two to one bets on him to join the Death Eaters."

"You bet on Snape becoming a Death Eater!?" Lily sounded outraged.

James grinned sheepishly at his wife and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yeah. There was a whole gambling pool going on while we were at Hogwarts betting on all sorts of things."

"What sort of things?" asked Lily dubiously.

"There was a bet on when you would finally agree to go out with James. I think Patricia Parker won that one. Then there was the one on which girl would last the longest with me. There was a bet on whether we would get expelled or not. A bet on how many detentions each of us would accumulate over the years. I won that one since I kept a tab. I came damn close to the record, in fact. There were tons of bets going on," Sirius told her.

"Was there any more about me?" Lily asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"There was the whole bet on who would become Head Boy and Girl. You were odds on favourite in that. I think Remus made a few Galleons on that bet. But there wasn't that many about you."

Lily shook her head in bemusement and wondered whether she should be cross or not.

"Are you going to stay for dinner?" James asked as Harry demanded to be hugged by his mother.

Sirius shook his head. "Sorry, Prongs old pal, but I've got to go soon. There's an Order meeting in a bit. I think Molly's cooking something so it should be good." Sirius checked his watch. "In fact, I think I better be going." He grinned apologetically at them.

"Well, give our love to everyone and tell Peter and Remus we're fine and Harry's well."

"Will do," Sirius promised as he stood up.

James stood up with Lily dropping Harry on the floor before standing up as well.

"Harry, say goodbye to Sirius," Lily instructed.

Harry ran slightly unsteadily to Sirius and hugged his legs. "Bye, Uncle Sirius." He then seemed to squint his eyes in focus and a few seconds later a small pendant of a dog that easily resembled Sirius' Animagus form appeared in his hand. He quickly handed it to Sirius before starting to wobble on his feet.

James quickly caught his son before Harry fell to the floor in exhaustion. James quickly picked Harry up and placed him gently on a comfy settee.

At Sirius' concerned look, James quickly explained. "He gets really exhausted when he uses his magic. He'll be out for the rest of the night now and be extremely hungry in the morning."

The three adults then made their way to the entrance hall to bid goodbye to each other.

"Don't be a stranger, Sirius," Lily murmured in Sirius' ear as she hugged him tightly.

"Try and pop in a bit more and not leave it for months. And remember it's Harry's birthday in a two week's time; five is a very important milestone and I expect you to be there," James told his best friend.

Sirius grinned at them both. "I can't make any promises, but I'll try and make it and I'll try and visit more often.

"Anyway, I really need to go otherwise I'll end up being late and Mad-Eye will end up thinking I'm an intruder and try an' hex me."

With that said and a few last minute goodbyes, Sirius Disapparated.

What none of them knew was that this was the last they would see of Sirius for over a year and when they did see him again it would be with even worse news.


End file.
